5 tips from the experts:

1. Cathy Johnson: "You can get these wonderfully inexpensive plastic palettes that are lightweight and travel well, but you can get by with a very, very few." This link brings you to Cathy’s PDF on how to make your own travel watercolor box from an Altoids box.

2. When you pack watercolors, do what Liz Steel does: she uses a simple sweatband to wear on her wrist to wipe off her paintbrush!

3. Instead of bringing brushes, take a water brush (or two). It has a container that you fill with water and by squeezing it, the brush is loaded with water so you can start painting right away. Jane Lafazio loves using it with watercolors, or combines it with water-soluble ink to get a nice range from lights to darks.

4. Koosje Koene has this policy when traveling: "Pack one pair of pants less and an extra sketchbook to fill with memories of your trip."

5. Lapin always carries a tiny lightweight folding stool so he can sit down to sketch anywhere: "The good thing about these very short stools is that you can use your knees as a support for your sketchbook if you want to spend an hour or so on an architecture subject or something like that. And it’s not tiring at all."

"Sketchbooks are great memory keepers, they are storehouses of so many memories” ~Prashant Miranda